


Ink Blot

by Aicnerys



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Amnesia, after dagor dagorath AU, heavily implied future angbang, mairon is trying to enjoy the evening, melkor is a hamster sized shadow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aicnerys/pseuds/Aicnerys
Summary: Mairon enjoys spending his evenings enjoying the play of color across the sky. Then hail ruins his plans. At least he gets a new... something? out of this.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor & Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Ink Blot

In retrospect, Mairon should have realized something was a bit off when it began to hail. Hail wasn’t exactly a common occurrence where he lived, and though summer hail was not impossible, it certainly wasn’t very common for the weather to go from clear, soft dusk to dark hail in the literal blink of an eye, sending Mairon running back inside to escape the hailstones, cursing his luck all the while.

Although Mairon, grumbling, chalked the hail up to mere bad luck, one would think that he’d also perhaps notice the unnatural darkness of the house, but he considered the deep, pooling shadows seeping across the floor, slick and oily in their creeping, to just be tricks played by his eyes on his brain and a mere result of the storm, and merely added grumbling about how dark the cloud cover was making the home as he went to turn on the lights.

Certainly, once the lights didn’t come on and when the shadows only grew deeper and deeper, crawling ever closer to the warmth beneath human flesh they so craved, one should probably think that Mairon would not just assume the power was out, what with all the strange storms and oddly oily shadows. Alas, he did, and went off, still complaining about ‘that damnable storm’, to search for a flashlight, briskly walking to the kitchen to get his phone, which he had left on the kitchen table, for light.

At this point, the thing in the darkness was beginning to get annoyed. He had made ice fall from the heavens in the dead of that dread season of heat and misery, defied the laws and rules of light to make shadows ooze, and even eaten the petty magic that humans harnessed to make false light, and he still wasn’t being showered with the attention and praise he deserved for his grand sorcery. Sure, he’d had to shuck most of the really,  _ really  _ cool magic he could do to escape from the Void, and he’d lost even more of his best, most supreme magic in the Dagor Dagorath, but he wanted attention and by Eru he was going to get it. Annoyed, the shadow creature found a slim, flat rectangle with more human magic in it and began attempting to consume the magic within to bolster his own.

Now, as the thing in the darkness internally complained that he wasn’t receiving the affection and attention he was owed while attempting to eat the phone, Mairon was groping in the darkness for his phone. When his hand brushed against his phone, Mairon sighed in relief and picked it up, too annoyed by what he assumed to be the power going out to notice the dark shadows clinging to it. 

The shadow creature felt itself being picked up and in a fit of what it would call wrath and indignation at the treatment, not fear, never fear, it let out what it would call a fearsome bellow to strike fear into the hearts of men.

Mairon heard a weird, godawful squeak, shrugged, and tried to turn his phone on. He assumed it was probably the hail hitting something nearby, and filed it away as not important. It was dark, the storm had ruined a really nice sunset, and he wanted to be able to see and not blindly grope the furniture.

After a few attempts at holding down the power button, Mairon’s phone turned on, and with it, the rest of the lights in the house.

“Weird…” Mairon muttered, casually flicking to the weather app to see about how long the storm should last. It was telling him that it was still sunny out.

He shrugged and assumed that it was just the weather forecasters being off as per usual, and considered none of this to be suspect at all.

The shadow creature was indignant, nigh incandescent with pure, unadulterated wrath, distilled from the finest of petty rage, well-aged over centuries spent in the Void. The human had made him release all the stolen magic, and oh, how words did not even begin to cover his absolute, petty rage at that. What sorcery humans have gained! 

However, he was a wily foe, and he had eaten even light. He felt no fear, no fear at all, ever, none whatsoever. In fact, he was so unafraid that he was going to reveal himself in full glory to the human.

Mairon turned off his phone and sat down at the kitchen table to observe the hail. It wasn’t quite a dusky sunset, but he had to admit, storms were gorgeous for the raw forces of nature they were. They haunted his dreams often, things of whorling mist and fire and choking, black miasma, over the land where shadows lied. 

Sometimes, he saw a great fortress in the clouds, dark and terrible, and though it frightened him, it was alluring in its awful majesty.

And then a hamster-sized shadow with glowing eyes sprung up from his kitchen table and that god awful screeching sound returned.

“Hail mortal!” the shadow began, as though it was bigger than it really was. “It is I, Melkor, dark Vala of chaos and doom, now returned to my rightful place as lord of this realm!”

“Okay.” Mairon said, looking around the shadow back at the storm, annoyed that he couldn’t see the fortress anymore.

“Wait you’re supposed to be afraid of me.” Melkor said, petulant. “Be afraid.”

Mairon sighed.

“Oh no, there’s a terrible shadow hamster in my house. Whatever will I do.” he said flatly, not even bothering to look at Melkor.

There was a moment of silence, then, where Mairon assumed that the shadow hamster got what it wanted and was going to leave, and as he was just getting settled back into his storm watching, Melkor spoke again.

“Lieutenant?” he asked. 

Mairon frowned. Such a way to refer to him seemed familiar, though in the way of a half-dreamt dream lingering after dawn, in the soft, liminal space between the dreaming and waking realms.

“Who’s that?” Mairon asked, slightly perturbed, though too wary to let it show.

“It is you.” Melkor said, seeming breathless. For a moment, Mairon had a mental image of the shadow in the shape of a man, or perhaps more an elf, but it was gone before he could note any details.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Mairon replied, feeling annoyance welling up inside of him. He’d really just like to watch the clouds.

Melkor oozed, maybe slid, or perhaps toddled, Mairon was not quite sure how hamster-size shadow beings moved, off the table and into Mairon’s lap.

“I want to sit in your hair.” Melkor said, glowy, icy eyes peering up at Mairon. “Please?” Mairon looked at the shadow creature in his lap, and figured that for all his grandstanding, he was pretty harmless.

“Sure.” Mairon said, and he lifted the shadow up to sit atop his head. Once there, Melkor made himself comfortable.

Melkor, now contentedly settled atop Mairon’s head, was even more convinced that this was indeed Mairon. Memories flickered back through the piercing cold of the Void that yet lingered in his mind, smoky memories, warm memories, memories that glowed like candlelight.

And love. But he would keep quiet on that for now. It would do him no good to frighten Mairon away with such things. Instead, he thought to conserve his strength, perhaps even to regain a more corporeal, less hamster-sized form.

That would surely impress Mairon!


End file.
